Since 1986 I have collected thousands of Rugman data enabling me to put many of the Rugmans collected onto 6 trees. Gloucestershire is by far the largest with more Rugmans than the other 5 trees put together. I could bore you with many statistics but to put it simply, on the 6 trees there are 2,348 individuals including 768 Rugmans, which is probably about half of all Rugmans that have ever lived.
I have recently joined the Canadian and Cheshire tree to the Gloucestershire tree so I am down to 4 trees. The 2 main trees, Gloucestershire and Sussex go back to about 1700 and the Hertfordshire tree only covers early 18th century and17th century so logically the main trees should join the Hertfordshire tree but I have no data to support this, yet. The remaining tree is really a ‘loose branch’ of the Sussex tree. There are earlier records of Rugmans in the 16th and 17th century in the City of London. The earliest record of the name was Thomas Rugman (Rugmayn - spelling was ‘casual’) at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. See www.familychronicle.com/agincort.htm.
In May 2007 I started a DNA Surname Project to find if there is only surname source. See DNA Surname Project web page.
If you are a Rugman or have a Rugman ancestor and you are interested in knowing if you belong to one of these Rugman family trees, please e-mail me details of yourself, going back as far as you can. To do this birth, marriage and death details, where known, are obviously useful but if you are not sure of the exact details please put 'about' date. Places and occupations are also useful. E-mail me here.
Photographs of Rugman families past and present are welcome and can be put on this website. In many old photographs some individuals are not recognised in the passage of time and hopefully inclusion on this website might produce a response from a long lost Rugman relative.
Peter J Rugman. Alsager, Cheshire, England.